The defence The Sentimental Softie
“Sincerity is not manipulation.”
The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.
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The Mother
Drama · Romance · 2003
A grandmother has a passionate affair with a man half her age, who is also sleeping with her daughter.
Movie details
The Mother
2003 Drama · Romance 1h 52m
Critical arithmetic
One number, for now.
Scores change. Arguments endure.
TMDB
6.0 / 10
Community rating
A grandmother has a passionate affair with a man half her age, who is also sleeping with her daughter.
CriticWise case file
What this film says about your taste.
Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.
The archetype split
Who fights over The Mother?
For the defence
The Sentimental Softie
“You came to feel something, and you will.”
Read their case For the prosecution
The Cool Ironist
“Feeling things is a little embarrassing.”
Read their objectionThe split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.
Taste neighbourhood
Nearby on the taste map.
TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.
Maria's Lovers
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A World War II prisoner returns home to his childhood sweetheart. However, back home, he discovers that he has to compete to win her love.
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In contemporary Los Angeles, two millennials navigating a social media–driven hookup culture begin a relationship that pushes both emotional and physical boundaries.
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The Souvenir
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The Man from Elysian Fields
Drama · 2001
A failed novelist's inability to pay the bills strains relations with his wife and leads him to work at an escort service, where he becomes entwined with a wealthy woman whose husband is a successful writer.
Blind
Drama · 2017
A novelist is blinded in a car crash that killed his wife and several years later rediscovers his passion for life and writing when he embarks on an affair with the neglected wife of an indicted businessman.
Fire with Fire
Drama · 1986
A tough, street-smart kid serving a sentence in a state youth reformatory meets a beautiful, innocent girl studying at a nearby convent. When forbidden love blossoms between them, they must fight the prison authorities, their parents and the law.
Lady Chatterley's Lover
Romance · 2015
An early-20th-century tale of love across class boundaries which tells the legendary and romantic story of Lady Chatterley’s affair with her gamekeeper. Jed Mercurio’s adaptation of DH Lawrence’s classic.
Inventing the Abbotts
Drama · 1997
In the 1950s, brothers Jacey and Doug Holt, who come from the poorer side of their sleepy Midwestern town, vie for the affections of the wealthy, lovely Abbott sisters. Lady-killer Jacey alternates between Eleanor and Alice, wanting simply to break the hearts of rich young women. But sensitive Doug has a real romance with Pamela, which Jacey and the Abbott patriarch, Lloyd, both frown upon.
White Palace
Drama · 1990
Max Baron is a Jewish advertising executive in his 20s who's still getting over the death of his wife. Nora Baker is a 40-something diner waitress who enjoys the wilder side of life. Mismatched or not, their attraction is instant and smoldering. With time, however, their class and age differences become an obstacle in their relationship, especially since Max can't keep Nora a secret from his Jewish friends and upper-crust associates forever.
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Names above the title
The people responsible.
Cast & crew
Directed by
Roger Michell
Written by
Hanif Kureishi
Anne Reid
May
Daniel Craig
Darren
Peter Vaughan
Toots
Steven Mackintosh
Bobby
Cathryn Bradshaw
Paula
Anna Wilson-Jones
Helen
D
Danira Gović
Au Pair
Court is in session
Put The Mother on trial.
Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.
The prosecution The Cool Ironist
“The strings are showing.”
Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.